Recordings have always been a hugely important part of my listening experience and musical education. Growing up in Northern Ireland in the later half of the twentieth century it was virtually impossible to hear live performances of much of the non-commercial music I was beginning to get in to. There was no South Bank, no Vortex Jazz Club and no BMIC Cutting Edge Series (to name but a few of the venues I began to frequent when I moved to London as a student).
It wasn’t all bad though, we were (and still are) fortunate enough to have in Belfast a forward looking organization called Moving On Music who consistently manage to bring interesting music to the city. There was also the once a year Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music where I still remember being blown away by seeing groups like the Arditti...
Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth led the Hallé Orchestra in expertly played, riveting accounts of three recent pieces by the august British modernist Harrison Birtwistle, proving anew exactly why it is we still bother to make records. Steve Smith, Time Out New York
'Sardonic in ways that parallel the perverse discourse taking place in America' Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago
